These stories are difficult to tell in large part because our protagonists have been less than forthcoming. We learn about events only if, and when, someone bravely contradicts officialdom, when a troubled public servant anonymously leaks the real story to a vigilant reporter, or someone is forced under duress and/or under penalty of the law to admit the truth.
With that in mind, it’s time to meet a man much less corporate than Rex Tillerson and quite a bit more eccentric. In 2012, President Obama appointed U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn to lead the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
As Dana Priest writes in the November, 2016 New Yorker, Flynn had worked his way up the ladder in “the clandestine arm of the military, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).”
Former CIA operative Alex Finley reminds us in Politico: “Flynn was at the top of his game … During his tenure, JSOC became a lean fighting machine, able to execute a hit on a target in a war zone and immediately process any actionable intelligence in order to hit the next target immediately, before the bad guys could move on.”
Priest: “Mr. Flynn’s success with ‘the killing and capture of suspected terrorists and insurgents in war zones’ made him an apt choice at DIA.” General Flynn served the Obama administration until 2014 when he was asked to leave. Why? As Priest and Greg Miller explain in the Washington Post “his management style could be chaotic and that the scope of his plans met resistance from both superiors and subordinates. At the same time, his tenure was marked by significant turbulence …”
The New Yorker: “Flynn also began to seek the Washington spotlight. But, without loyal junior officers at his side to vet his facts, he found even more trouble. His subordinates started a list of what they called ‘Flynn facts,’ things he would say that weren’t true, as when he asserted that three-quarters of all new cell phones were bought by Africans or, later, that Iran had killed more Americans than Al Qaeda …
“Flynn’s temper also flared. He berated people in front of colleagues. Soon, according to former associates, a parallel power structure developed within the D.I.A. to fence him in, and to keep the nearly seventeen-thousand-person agency working.”
Flynn’s brief was extraordinarily broad. As he testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 11, 2014: “Our assessments are based upon the agency’s worldwide human intelligence, technical intelligence, counterintelligence, and document and media exploitation capabilities, along with information from DIA’s partners in the IC and the entire defense intelligence enterprise, international allies, and open sources … As conflict between states evolves, the cyberspace is becoming an increasingly vital component of strategy and doctrine for war fighting. Non‐state actors remain unpredictable, and the entry barrier to procure disruptive cyber tools and capabilities remains very low.”
Like the surprising capability of Russia, or perhaps Russian non-state actors, to employ “disruptive cyber tools” and exploit Twitter, Google, YouTube, and Facebook. In the weeks to come we’ll explore the work of others with advanced social media and refined analytics skills, and with resources like Jared Kushner, the son-in-law whose experience with Cadre, the online real estate business, enabled him to take over the Trump campaign’s $85 million Facebook initiatives. And like, of course, the wealthy former Wall Streeter yet unkempt self-proclaimed three-shirt spokesman for ‘The Deplorables,” Steve Bannon, and his Breitbartian multi-billionaire patrons, the Mercers and their firm, Cambridge Analytica.
Dana Priest: “Some of Flynn’s other moves angered superiors. Former U.S. officials said he was scolded after traveling to Pakistan in 2009 or early 2010 and revealing to Pakistani officials sensitive U.S. intelligence on the militant Haqqani network accused of staging attacks on American forces. U.S. officials said that the move was aimed at prodding Pakistan to crack down on the militant group, but that Flynn exposed U.S. intelligence capabilities that only helped Pakistan protect an organization it used as a proxy ally.
“Flynn also came under investigation by the Pentagon because of an allegation that he had inappropriately shared highly classified intelligence with Australian and British forces. ‘I’m proud of that one,’ Flynn said in an interview. ‘Accuse me of sharing intelligence in combat with our closest allies. Please!’ ”
Reminiscent perhaps of POTUS’ conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak when he not only revealed his great relief that FBI Director Comey was now out of his hair, but couldn’t help but boast to these senior representatives of Syria’s major ally that Israeli cybersecurity had penetrated a cell of Syrian bomb-makers working on a way to sneak explosives on board airplanes via electronic devices.
After General Flynn was retired from DIA by President Obama, he established the Flynn Intel Group, consulting with businesses and governments. As the New York Times put it: “Mr. Flynn decided that the military’s loss would be his gain: He would parlay his contacts, his disdain for conventional bureaucracy, and his intelligence career battling Al Qaeda into a lucrative business advising cybersecurity firms and other government contractors.
“Over the next two years he would sign on as a consultant to nearly two dozen companies … ‘I’ve always had that entrepreneurial spirit,’ Mr. Flynn said in an interview in October 2015. In the military, he added, ‘I learned that following the way you’re supposed to do things isn’t always the way to accomplish a task.’ “His clients ranged from a drone manufacturer in Florida to major software companies … Mr. Flynn’s work paid well — while it lasted. Financial disclosure forms released in March showed income of between $1.37 million and $1.47 million for a period that roughly covered 2016, the bulk of it from the Flynn Intel Group.”
Priest notes in The New Yorker: “Flynn followed the path of many other retired generals and got on the television and speaking circuit. He wrote a book with Michael Ledeen, a controversial neoconservative foreign-policy analyst, about defeating terrorism. Islam is not a religion … but a political ideology bent on destroying Judeo-Christian civilization. Flynn began saying that he had been fired because President Obama disagreed with his views on terrorism and wanted to hide the growth of ISIS.”
In a 2015 speech, Flynn spoke about his view of the world: “Retreat, retrenchment, and disarmament are historically a recipe for disaster. For that reason, we must always be ready to deploy what Winston Churchill called ‘overwhelming power.’ … A prudent foreign policy considers threats, interests, and opportunities based on the imperatives of world politics rather than vague notions of cosmic justice or ‘international morality.’ While those ideas are fine for the ivory tower, they are not rooted in the real world that we all live in today.”
In this spirit, in February 2016, General Flynn forwarded to his Twitter followers a video claiming that virtually all terrorism occurring today throughout the entire world is Islamic terror, adding: “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL: please forward this to others: the truth fears no questions …”
General Flynn told Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News: “One of the key reasons why I was let go by the military — and I argued this while I was in the military, I was very vocal about this — we must clearly define the enemies that we are going to face. And in this case, it’s radical Islam. The Administration right now, and Hillary Clinton has been a big part of it … the influence by organizations inside of our government right now at the federal level, and by some of these very strong Muslim organizations, like a CAIR or the Muslim Brotherhood, they have influenced our government to excise, to eliminate, this type of language from our training manuals, from all the things that we know to be true …
“One last point: when we used to say that the enemy was ‘over there’ — like they’re over in Iraq, or Syria, or Afghanistan, or Somalia — that enemy right now is here in our country. We just saw three attacks that were essentially successful. Thank God nobody was killed. I mean, there were a number of people injured, I think 30, almost 40 injured, in Minnesota and New York. But there was a total of 5 attacks … and what our Administration wants to do is, they want to take what is actually happening and basically redefine it as something else, to basically get the American public to sort of dumb us down.” (Emphasis mine.)
Flynn began advising the Trump campaign in February 2016. The campaign needed someone with Flynn’s national security credentials and Flynn relished the chance to make the case for a renewed assault on radical Islam and a chance to even several scores with those associated with the Obama administration.
Dana Priest wrote in the Washington Post: “In campaign appearances for Donald Trump, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn has cast the presidential race as a continuation of the career he spent battling dangerous enemies in distant wars. ‘The enemy camp in this case is Hillary Rodham Clinton,’ he said at a rally in Florida this month, pointing his thumbs down in disgust. ‘This is a person who does not know the difference between a lie and the truth … She is somebody who will leave Americans behind on the battlefield’ … As chants of ‘Lock her up!’ rose from the crowd, Flynn nodded with enthusiasm and said he was ‘so proud, standing up here, to be an American.’”
A Politico article on July 8, 2016 notes: “Flynn, 57, who has briefed Trump in person and penned memos for him, has emerged as more than a valued informal adviser — he’s a potential running mate. Trump associates say that Flynn has been the subject of growing discussions inside the campaign, as Trump himself has signaled publicly that he is exploring a running mate from outside the ranks of politicians, including from the military.
“‘I like the generals. I like the concept of the generals. We’re thinking about — actually there are two of them that are under consideration,’ Trump said Wednesday on Fox News … Flynn has advised the candidate on the Islamic State, Iran and the military, according to a Trump associate familiar with the discussions. And he’s briefed Trump in person at Trump Tower, beginning last fall ahead of a debate focused on foreign affairs.”
Flynn reprised his virulent anti-Hillary message during the Republican Convention. As the New York Daily News reported: “Flynn spent much of his speech attacking Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, highlighting her use of a private email server as Secretary of State. ‘We do not need a reckless president who believes she is above the law,’ he said.
‘Lock her up,’ the audience chanted. Flynn joined in.
‘Yes, that’s right, lock her up!’ he said.
‘I have called on Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race because she put our nation’s security at extremely high risk with her careless use of her private email server,’ he added.
As the ‘lock her up’ chants resumed, Flynn encouraged the crowd and explained the reasoning behind the attacks on Clinton.
‘You know why we’re saying that? We’re saying that because if I — a guy who knows this business — if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today. So … So … Crooked Hillary Clinton, leave this race now.’ ”
On September 23, 2016, Flynn told Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News: “One thing that I know is that the American public is the smartest group of people in the world, and they know better … And I believe, I strongly believe, that on the 8th of November, the American public is going to come out in droves to vote for Donald Trump as President of the United States.”
Back to Dana Priest’s New Yorker portrait: “‘U decide,’ he posted one week before the election, along with the headline from a linked story that appeared on a Web site called True Pundit: ‘NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w/Children, etc. … MUST READ!’”
General Flynn’s unwavering focus remained on what he was convinced were the grievous failures of the Obama Administration to appreciate the growing threat posed by Islam. And I imagine it made sense to him to help in any way to forge what he regarded as a necessary strategic U.S. and Russian alliance to counter Islam’s holy war. Which may explain why he seemed less concerned by the disturbing, violent ways Russia suppressed internal dissent, and their aggressive military intervention in Ukraine.
Yet, it was precisely these actions and events that prompted the Obama Administration to enact harsh economic sanctions on Russia. Sanctions that made, and continue to make, Putin and his associates furious. Actions that put a crimp in the re-establishment of the kind of cordial and productive working relations Flynn might have hoped for. And it is these sanctions that might well have prompted the extraordinary efforts of Putin and the Russians to influence the 2016 election and attempt to determine with whom they would be negotiating. To find American allies in these efforts.
Let’s begin with the 2012 Magnitsky Act, named as the Washington Post tells us “after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer and auditor who in 2008 untangled a dense web of tax fraud and graft involving 23 companies and a total of $230 million linked to the Kremlin and individuals close to the government. Magnitsky was the target of investigations, arrested by authorities and kept in jail without charges. He was beaten and later died under mysterious circumstances in jail just days before his possible release.” The law was prompted by the successful lobbying efforts of Congress by Bill Browder, a U.S. hedge fund manager, who had hired Magnitsky to investigate what had happened to his investments in Russia.
The Washington Post notes: “The law at first blocked 18 Russian government officials and businessmen from entering the United States, froze any assets held by U.S. banks and banned their future use of U.S. banking systems. The act was expanded in 2016, and now sanctions apply to 44 suspected human rights abusers worldwide … Two weeks after Obama signed the Magnitsky Act, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill that blocked adoption of Russian children by parents in the United States. Russia then also imposed sanctions on Browder and found Magnitsky posthumously guilty of crimes.”
On March 6, 2014, the United States authorized “sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, or for stealing the assets of the Ukrainian people.”
The Congressional Research Service, three years later, issued a review by Rebecca M. Nelson on the scope of those sanctions and the impact they had on Russia: “Some Russian companies are subject to U.S. asset freezes and are prohibited from engaging in economic transactions with U.S. individuals and entities. Examples include Bank Rossiya, which has been called the “personal bank of Putin”; the Volga Group, a holding company owned by a close ally of Putin; and Almaz-Antey, a state-owned defense company …
“Restrictions on financial transactions with Russian firms operating in key sectors … Examples of Russian firms subject to these sanctions include Rosoboronexport, a state-owned arms exporter; Rosneft, a state-owned oil company and the world’s largest publicly-traded oil producer; Rostec, a major Russian hi-tech and defense conglomerate; and Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia.”
The U.K. Telegraph tells us more: “Included in Thursday’s target list were figures who are not only close political allies of Mr. Putin, but long-time associates – including some that could be called his oldest friends … Among them were Yuri Kovalchuck, who is said to be Mr. Putin’s personal banker; Vladimir Yakunin, who is a member of a holiday home cooperative with Mr. Putin and head of Russian Railways; and the billionaire Rotenberg brothers, who have known Mr. Putin since they were children in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, where they trained together in judo.
“Among the officials was Sergei Ivanov, an old colleague of Mr. Putin’s from the Leningrad KGB who is spoken of as the president’s “right hand man” and was one of three advisers who reportedly met Mr. Putin before the decision on military action in Crimea.”
As for impact, Rebecca Nelson writes: “… Russia’s access to foreign capital remains limited. For countries reporting banking data to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), foreign bank loans to Russia (including private and public sectors) have fallen by more than half between the end of 2013 and the third quarter of 2016, from $225 billion to $103 billion.”
On January 11, 2016, Vladimir Putin told the German newspaper, BILD:
Putin: I’m telling you: the reunification of Crimea and Russia is just. The West’s sanctions are not aimed at helping Ukraine, but at geo-politically pushing Russia back. They are foolish and are merely harming both sides.
BILD: How difficult are the sanctions for Russia?
Putin: Concerning our possibilities on the international financial markets, the sanctions are severely harming Russia. But the biggest harm is currently caused by the decline of the prices for energy. We suffer dangerous revenue losses in our export of oil and gas, which we can partly compensate for elsewhere. But the whole thing also has a positive side: if you earn so many petrodollars – as we once did – that you can buy anything abroad, this slows down developments in your own country.
BILD: It is claimed that the Russian economy has suffered severely.
Putin: We are currently gradually stabilizing our economy. Last year, the gross domestic product had dropped by 3.8 per cent. Inflation is approximately 12.7 per cent. The trade balance, however, is still positive. For the first time in many years, we are exporting significantly more goods with a high added value, and we have more than 300 billion dollars in gold reserves. Several programs for modernizing the economy are being carried out.”
You can see why Russia was/is actively seeking support for an end to sanctions from various Americans of influence. Why Putin and Russia might work hard to find potential allies in the Trump campaign. And prefer Trump over Clinton.
Back to General Flynn. Thanks to an interview with investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, we first learned on July 18, 2016 that General Flynn was paid for a December 10, 2015 speech he gave for Russian State Television, RT, and dined beside Vladimir Putin at the 10th Anniversary celebration of RT:
Q: “Were you paid for that event?”
A: “You’d have to ask my – the folks I went over there to –”
Q: “Well, I’m asking you. You’d know if you were paid.”
A: “Yeah, I mean, I went over there as a speaking event. It was a speaking event.”
Q: “And –”
A: “What difference does that make?” Does somebody go, ‘Oh he was paid by the Russians!’”?
Q: “Well Donald Trump has made a lot of the fact Hillary Clinton has taken money from Wall Street –”
A: “Yeah. I didn’t take any money from Russia, if that’s what you’re asking me.”
Q: “Well then, who paid you?”
A: “My speaker’s bureau. Ask them.”
On August 15, 2016, Dana Priest published the transcript of a phone interview with Flynn:
DANA PRIEST: You weren’t such a public person in the military. Was it your idea to become more public?
MICHAEL FLYNN: I consciously made a decision once I felt the country was at such risk and I was advising five of the candidates running for president … They would ask me about national security, what’s happening in the world, my thoughts on particular issues …
PRIEST: How did you meet Trump in particular?
FLYNN: I got a phone call from his team. They asked if I would be willing meet with Mr. Trump and I did … In late summer 2015.
PRIEST: What was your impression?
FLYNN: I was very impressed. Very serious guy. Good listener. Asked really good questions … I found him to be very attuned to what was going on around the world …
PRIEST: Let me ask me about Russia. There has been a lot in the news about your trips …
FLYNN: One in the military [while director of the Defense Intelligence Agency]. I went there on a fully approved trip … I was the first U.S. officer ever allowed inside the headquarters of the GRU [Russian intelligence]. I was able to brief their entire staff … and talked a lot about the way the world’s unfolding …
PRIEST: Then relations got put on hold because of Ukraine?
FLYNN: Not really. People say because of [Russia’s invasion of] Ukraine [but] at the same time we’re dealing with Russia on Iranian nuclear weapons. So when people go, “Ukraine and Russia is bad,” but at the same time we’re sitting down with Russia on giving the lead state sponsor of terror a pathway to a nuclear bomb and $150 million … I saw the relation with Russia as necessary to the U.S., for the interests of the U.S. We worked very closely with them on the Sochi Olympics. We were working closely with them on the Iranian nuclear deal. We beat Hitler because of our relationship with the Russians, so anybody that looks on it as anything but a relationship that’s required for mutual supporting interests, including ISIS, … that’s really where I’m at with Russia. We have a problem with radical Islamism and I actually think that we could work together with them against this enemy. They have a worse problem than we do.
PRIEST: Tell me about the RT [state-run Russian Television] relationship?
FLYNN: I was asked by my speaker’s bureau, LAI. I do public speaking. It was in Russia. It was a paid speaking opportunity… to do an interview with [RT correspondent] Sophie Shevardnadze … in front of the forum, probably 200 people in the audience. My purpose there was I was asked to talk about radical Islam in the Middle East … The statement that I made was actually: “Russia ought to get Iran to back out of the proxy wars they are involved in,” to include Syria, so we, the rest of the international community, could settle this situation down …
PRIEST: Have you appeared on RT regularly?
FLYNN: I appear on Al Jazeera, Skye New Arabia, RT. I don’t get paid a dime. I have no media contracts. … [I am interviewed] on CNN, Fox …
PRIEST: Why would you go on RT, they’re state run?
FLYNN: Well, what’s CNN?
PRIEST: Well, it’s not run by the state. You’re rolling your eyes.
FLYNN: Well, what’s MSNBC? I mean, come on … I have been asked by multiple organizations to be a [paid] contributor but I don’t want to be. … I want to be able to speak freely about what I believe …
PRIEST: Let me ask about sitting next to Putin … because that’s the symbol.
FLYNN: Yeah, I know, boring.
PRIEST: But did you think about what the optics would be …
FLYNN: Sure. I didn’t have any problem. What I’m looking for is to make sure, in my view, I see a country that has lost respect for another country and if I have any sort of fiber in my body where I can help out to make sure they understand that we have people in our country who aren’t going to apologize for who we are …
PRIEST: To broaden the discussion on the Russia question a little bit, there’s [Trump adviser] Carter Page having business interest and Paul Manafort have business interests there.
FLYNN: How about the Clintons? … If that’s all you want to talk about, I don’t want to do this anymore.
PRIEST: But that’s not all I’m talking about. I’m trying to just get it out there on the table.
FLYNN: You know what? I don’t know what their business interests are. I’ve talked with Paul Manafort, met him, but if Carter Page walked in here, I wouldn’t know who he is … you know what? Look at the amount of money the Global Clinton Initiative is taking from countries right now …
PRIEST: When you were in uniform, can you give me an example of something you saw having to do with Obama and Clinton that really turned you?
FLYNN: Libya. Indecision or the dumb decision … There was no recognition that we were facing an ideology that was expanding … The intelligence system was telling them that these organizations are growing, that the ideology was radicalizing and these guys are beyond little ol’ Afghanistan and little ol’ Iraq and Syria … this is about going after an ideology that is within the Islamic world that is like a metastasized cancer that has grown and this president has been presented that information, routinely, often, and has been shown this enemy for what it is and still refuses to call it for what it is, and until you do, you really can’t have a coherent strategy … They didn’t want me to say that North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba were allies of radical Islam …
We learned more about Flynn’s speech when Congressman Elijah Cummings released a series of emails and receipts. The Washington Post of March 16, 2017 reports: “The documents show that representatives for Flynn at the speakers bureau, Leading Authorities, negotiated with RT officials in Moscow regarding the event. They ultimately directed that the bureau be paid $45,386 through its London office. The bureau collected $11,250 while Flynn was paid $33,750 — a fee that was reduced after RT balked at paying Flynn’s original asking price …
“In its invitation for Flynn to participate in a panel on “Geo-politics 2015 and Russia’s changing role in the world,” an RT producer wrote that Flynn was being invited because he was ‘one of the world’s leading voices on national security issues.’ She added that the event would provide ‘exceptional networking opportunities for high-level media and political influencers from Russia and around the world.’
“The emails show that in addition to paying for Flynn’s speaking fee, RT paid for business-class travel and accommodations at the luxury Metropol hotel while covering expenses for Flynn’s son, Michael G. Flynn, who served as a chief of staff. After the logistics were nailed down, a staffer for Flynn’s speakers bureau wrote to an RT staffer, ‘I’m so happy we were able to work everything out and get you exactly what you wanted!’ ”
As Flynn was flaying Hillary Clinton at the Republican Convention, the Trump campaign was working to weaken a resolution in the platform regarding the Ukraine. In a July 18, 2016 opinion piece for the Washington Post, Josh Rogin wrote: “Republican delegates at last week’s national security committee platform meeting in Cleveland were surprised when the Trump campaign orchestrated a set of events to make sure that the GOP would not pledge to give Ukraine the weapons it has been asking for from the United States. Inside the meeting, Diana Denman, a platform committee member from Texas who was a Ted Cruz supporter, proposed a platform amendment that would call for maintaining or increasing sanctions against Russia, increasing aid for Ukraine and “providing lethal defensive weapons” to the Ukrainian military.
‘Today, the post-Cold War ideal of a ‘Europe whole and free’ is being severely tested by Russia’s ongoing military aggression in Ukraine,’ the amendment read. ‘The Ukrainian people deserve our admiration and support in their struggle.’
Trump staffers in the room, who are not delegates but are there to oversee the process, intervened. By working with pro-Trump delegates, they were able to get the issue tabled while they devised a method to roll back the language.”
The infamous Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS dossier makes the following critical claim that purports to connect some major dots: “Source E, acknowledging that the Russian regime had been behind the recent leak of embarrassing e-mail messages, emanating from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to the Wikileaks platform. The reason for using Wikileaks was ‘plausible deniability’ and the operation had been conducted with the full knowledge and support of TRUMP and senior members of his campaign team. In return the TRUMP Team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue and to raise US/NATO defense commitments in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine, a priority for Putin who needed to cauterize the subject.”
Several pages later, Steele notes: “Kremlin engaging with several high profile US players including STEIN, PAGE, and (former DIA Director Michael Flynn), and funding their recent visits to Moscow.”
Based on his enthusiastic efforts during the campaign it was not surprising that after the election General Flynn was tapped to be President Trump’s National Security Advisor.
Next up: General Flynn, Round Two, when many truths come tumbling down upon him.
Sources:
“The Disruptive Career of Michael Flynn” Dana Priest, The New Yorker, November 23, 2016
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-disruptive-career-of-trumps-national-security-adviser
“The Recruitables: Why Trump’s Team Was Easy Prey for Putin” Alex Finley, October 26, 2017, Politico Magazine
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/26/trump-team-prey-putin-215743
“He was one of the most respected intel officers of his generation. Now he’s leading ‘Lock her up’ chants.” Dana Priest and Greg Miller, the Washington Post August 15, 2016
ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT: Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee United States Senate, 11 February 2014, Michael T. Flynn, Lieutenant General, U.S. Army Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
https://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/2014_DIA_SFR_SASC_ATA_FINAL.pdf
Head of Pentagon intelligence agency forced out, officials say Greg Miller and Adam Goldman, the Washington Post, April 30, 2014
“How Michael Flynn’s Disdain for Limits Led to a Legal Quagmire” By Nicholas Confessore, Matthew Rosenberg and Danny Haki
The New York Times, June 18, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/18/us/politics/michael-flynn-intel-group-trump.html?_r=0
Foreign Policy transcript Flynn’s 2015 speech
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/11/the-text-of-general-flynns-speech-2/
“Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn on Obama and Hillary’s Refusal to Name Radical Islamic Terrorism: Aiming to ‘Dumb Us Down’” John Hayward, September 23, 2016, Breitbart News
“Trump’s favorite general”
Bryan Bender and Shane Goldmacher, Politico, July 8, 2016
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/donald-trump-general-michael-flynn-vp-225253
“A look back at Michael Flynn’s RNC speech when he blasted Clinton for putting nation’s security ‘at extremely high risk’”
Dan Good, February 12, 2017 New York Daily News
“Trump adviser Michael T. Flynn on his dinner with Putin and why Russia Today is just like CNN”
Dana Priest, Washington Post, August 15, 2016
“Trump adviser Flynn paid by multiple Russia-related entities, new records show”
Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger, March 16, 2017, The Washington Post
March 18, 2017 Letter House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to President Trump
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3518397/Michael-Flynn-Russia-Trip-Documents.pdf
“The Magnitisky Act, Explained” Alex Horton, July 14, 2017, The Washington Post
“Ukraine crisis: See full sanctions list” Mohammed Al-Saiegh, May 13, 2014, CNN
https://money.cnn.com/2014/04/29/news/russia-sanctions-list/index.html
Russia and Ukraine Sanctions, Department of the Treasury
https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/ukrainerussia/
“Ukraine crisis: Barack Obama targets oligarchs with sanctions against Russia” Roland Oliphant and Bruno Waterfield, March 20, 2014, U.K. Telegraph
“U.S. Sanctions and Russia’s Economy,”
Rebecca M. Nelson, Congressional Research Service, February 17, 2017
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R43895.pdf
“Obama administration announces measures to punish Russia for 2016 election interference” Missy Ryan, Ellen Nakashima and Karen DeYoung ,December 29, 2016, The Washington Post
Steele, Fusion GPS Dossier:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984/Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.pdf
